For The Best
by fababies
Summary: This story follows Quinn F. and Rachel B. as they struggle to find the positives of their break up. How will the two survive without each other, and more importantly, will they?
1. I Love You Enough to Let You Go

"I'm in love with Rachel Berry."

The words rolled off her tongue so easily, and just felt so damn right, that Quinn Fabray questioned why she'd waited this long to tell her Mother, why it'd taken so long just to rack up enough courage to let everyone in Lima know that Quinn had feelings for none other but Rachel Berry. It felt like a weight - no an entire elephant- was lifted off of the eighteen year olds shoulder.

Quinn heard the clink of the fork hit her Mother's plate faster than she her green eyes could even notice her Mother's shock. Quinn had never exactly had loving parents, but she thought that maybe now that her Father was gone maybe her Mother and her could finally start bonding. Just like other mothers and daughters around Lima. But judging by the words coming out of Mother's mouth, the two were long away from that special bonding stage.

"Are you crazy, Lucy?" Judy questioned her with a scowl. Her eyes possessed so much hatred in just one look at her now trembling daughter. Quinn wasn't expecting this, she thought her mom would understand, and maybe for once comfort her daughter through a rough and confusing time in her life. That was definitely not the case here. Tears rolled down her Mother's cheeks before Quinn could even open her mouth in shock. "I just want a normal family! For once, Quinn! Is a normal daughter too much to ask for?"

Judy stood up from the wooden chair to emphasize her disappointment in her daughter. In her life. Quinn could feel her heart breaking inside her chest and somehow managed to speak through the sobs that were currently stuck in the girl's throat.

"You think this isn't hard for me, Mom?" Quinn fired back, dropping her fork and standing up in retaliation. There was no way her Mother was going to be the superior one here. "You think I don't want to change who I am? How I feel?"

Quinn could hear the deep breaths of her Mother across the unnecessarily long table that stood between the two Fabrays. The loudest silence filled the air for what felt like forever to Quinn. The two just stared at each other through tear blurred eyes. Until Judy hung her head, unable to look at her Daughter's face anymore.

"Just go to your room, Quinn," Judy told her daughter in a surprisingly soft tone. A sound escaped Quinn's voice to protest, but her Mother just repeated what she'd said before with clenched teeth, now looking up into Quinn's broken eyes.

"Why can't we just talk about it?" Quinn asked with a shaky voice, not moving a muscle or following her Mother's request. "I'm scared, mom. I really need you right now," She added, watching as her Mother shook her head and shifted her focus to a vase in the room that she obviously wasn't interested in at the time. "Why can't you just talk to me?" Quinn pleaded, her voice cracking in the middle to hold back another sob.

"I have nothing to say to you," Was her Mother's reply. And with that, Quinn was gone. The conversation wasn't going anywhere and it certainly wasn't going to help anything.

"Q-Quinn, what's going on?" The brunette's shaken, but still beautiful voice filled the empty coffee shop. Rachel wielded her way through the many tables in the way of the table in the corner Quinn had selected for the both of them. "I mean, I asked you in my text but you didn't reply. Is it me, is it something I did? I'm so-"

"Rachel, stop," Quinn told the panicked girl that she was so in love with in every way possible. Rachel's voice dropped and she said nothing as she made her way to the chair in front of Quinn. Once she'd sat down Rachel found Quinn's hand underneath the table and didn't hesitate to entangle her hands with the blondes.

"It's not you," Quinn continued, feeling reassured by just the touch of the woman's hand. Rachel opened her mouth to question Quinn, obviously eager to find out what made Quinn send those urgent texts to meet her at the Lima Bean, but shut it when Quinn started to talk again. "I told my mom."

"About Yale?" Rachel cluelessly asked, obviously confused why Quinn's mother would be upset if this were truly the case. Quinn shook her head moving her glance from Rachel's beautiful eyes to their hands interlocked on the table. "Then what, Quinn? I-I don't get it."

After taking a deep breath and closing her eyes the words rushed out of her mouth, "I told her about us, Rachel. I told her I loved you." After a moment of silence and a quiet 'Oh' from Rachel, Quinn opened her green eyes to try to stay strong for her girlfriend.

"Quinn, it doesn't matter what she thinks, honey," Rachel assured her girlfriend with a soft tone, squeezing the girls slightly trembling hands to add strength to Quinn. Rachel felt a pang of hurt flooding through her body as she saw tears form in Quinn's eyes, struggling to stay put and not fall down her face.

"I tell myself that everyday," Quinn replied blankly, avoiding eye contact with Rachel and instead pretending to be particularly interested with a plant in the corner of the coffee shop. "But I still just, I-I just can't believe what I say. That her opinion doesn't matter, cause it does, Rachel. Sh-she's my mom." The tears couldn't take it any more and started flowing down the blonde's cheeks. "I just want my mom to love me."

Rachel could feel her own heart breaking, so pained by the sight of the girl she loved looking so devastating over something Rachel couldn't control.

"Quinn…" Rachel mumbled, rising from her seat and moving towards Quinn. She wrapped her arms around the crying girl and Quinn did not object. Rachel tried her best to comfort her but even Rachel's kisses on the top of her head weren't consoling the broken girl.

Quinn finally raised her head, using her coat sleeve to wipe away some tears, and for the first time in half an hour she finally looked Rachel straight in her eyes. Oh God, those eyes. Those beautiful, heavenly eyes, had tears formed in them as well, which killed Quinn. Quinn had seen Rachel hurt too many times, and she was the reason every single time.

It was that moment that Quinn decided that she'd do anything she could not to hurt that girl. That she'd make sure she never had to see that look ever again. So Quinn did what she did best, she left.

"I can't do this anymore, Rachel," Quinn told Rachel with an incredibly shaky voice. "I just can't."

There was the face. But Quinn had to ignore it, she knew Rachel would get over it and someday those eyes wouldn't be so broken and distant, Rachel's heart would be less scarred. She knew that would only happy without Quinn Fabray there to constantly hurt her.

Ignoring the hurt noise that came out of Rachel's throat, Quinn sprung out of her chair, heading straight for the exit.

"That's it?" She heard Rachel call from behind her. "You're just going to give up on us that easily, Quinn? After everything we've been through together?"

It took everything Quinn had to keep walking to her car without collapsing to the ground in sobs.


	2. Broken Promises

"Well it's not like she died, Fabray," Santana Lopez began, "If you miss Rachel so much, why don't you just get her back? It's not rocket science."

"It's not that easy, Santana," Quinn replied hesitantly, her legs swung over the edge of her best friend's porch. Her eyes fixated on a butterfly trying to find it's way from the pebble it was previously resting on to the clear blue sky above.

"Sure it is. I'm sick and tired of you moping around, Q."

Quinn's glance moved from the fluttering of the butterfly's blue wings to Santana. "You're acting as if you didn't spend weeks crying on your bedroom floor after you broke up with Brittany."

"That's different," Santana replied, as she dropped the daisy she was twirling in her right hand. Quinn noticed the way her facial expression turned ice cold after Brittany had mentioned. It did that every single time. Santana was a tough girl, everyone knew that, but Brittany was the one thing that could melt away the ice surrounding Santana's heart. Which is why Quinn was shocked once she got the phone call from Santana one late night explaining that the two had ended things, although it was hard to understand through the girl's sobs.

"Sure it is," Quinn scoffed, returning her gaze to the grass that periodically swayed in the cooling summer breeze.

The two stayed silent for a while, an awkwardness stretching out between them until Quinn finally spoke up.

"Do you think she has any regret?" Quinn asked her best friend. She had moved her head up from staring at the ground but didn't look towards Santana, instead she fixated on a group of children playing hopscotch just across the street. Quinn's mind wandered back to the days when the only hardships she faced were scrapes on her knees after falling off the swing set. The time seemed so distant, way different than now.

_I wish I'd never grown up._

"What do you mean?" Santana's voice cut through her thoughts, bringing Quinn back to reality.

"You know… about us," Quinn tried to explain.

"Not at all. You're a stubborn girl, Q. But an amazing one at that. Anyone would be lucky to have you to call their own. Especially Rachel."

Quinn looked up at Santana through watering eyes. "I just did what I thought would inevitably happen. It seemed like the right choice at the time."

"And it was, Quinn! You two would've had to broke up when summer end-"

"It wasn't," Quinn's voice cut her off. Shaky, but certain. "I just ended up hurting her even more than I already had."

A few stranded tears made their way down her cheeks slowly, but Quinn didn't wipe them off. She couldn't move at all. She felt more useless than ever before. So she just sat there, letting her tears fall freely, and not even bothering to acknowledge the girl beside her who was resting her head on Quinn's shoulder.

"I broke the promise."

"You're insane, Rachel Berry. Absolutely insane!" Quinn yelled after Rachel as she tried to keep up with her fast pace. The lights around her illuminated the night sky along with the moonlight, and the blasting carnival style music filled her eardrums. She tried not to step on anybody's shoes as she cut through crowd after crowd, holding Rachel by the fingertips as the brunette dragged her along.

It was a cool October evening and the two girls were taking Lima's Fall Fair by storm. The night had started with cotton candy and the same old talk about the future, NYADA, and of course Finn Hudson. Previously, Quinn wouldn't have been able to identify why in the world her heart would sink to her stomach each time Finn's name was mentioned, but that night she had a clear idea why. Even though Rachel and Finn had broken up weeks prior to this evening, Quinn couldn't help but notice a sense of longing in Rachel's voice as she spoke about him. Now that she'd spent sleepless nights alone with her thoughts Quinn knew exactly what the feeling was - jealousy.

The two had been friends for quite sometime now and it seemed that somewhere along the way Quinn had gotten lost in Rachel's eyes, in her laugh, and the way her hair fell perfectly over her shoulders. Quinn had fallen for the girl, but was terrified and sadly convinced that Rachel didn't feel the same. Why would she? Quinn thought of herself as only some girl with a lost mind. Rachel deserved much better than that.

The cotton candy and small talk then turned into rides and games, and now as the night was beginning to come to an end Rachel was dragging Quinn to an unknown place.

"I prefer adventurous, Quinn!" Rachel called back, her voice slightly muffled from the crowd surround the two.

"Insane!" She retaliated. Just as the two had began to slow down. As Quinn looked around her and tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness, all she saw was forest surrounding them. The crowd was far behind them, and the whimsical music and lights of the fair could only be spotted far off in the distance.

"Come on!" Rachel beckoned, although she was beginning to slow her pace down to a fast walk.

"Is there really a hurry?"

"Everything's a hurry in my life, Quinn," Rachel replied.

_Right, _Quinn thought. _Never a dull moment the life of Rachel Berry._

Minutes later the two made their way underneath a large tree, with long branches carrying leaves of every colour. In front of the two was a river, with slow moving waves. The moonlight above them directly lit up the area where the blonde and the brunette were sitting. Quinn could tell why Rachel wanted to be here. Everything about the small area seemed beautiful, and so peaceful. Such an abrupt change from the fair that was yards back.

Quinn shifted her head to look at Rachel, as she got lost in her beauty she realized that her lips were moving, but Quinn was so captivated by the way the moonlight flickered in here eyes, and the way her strands of brunette hair were blowing slightly in the wind, that she hadn't even noticed.

"Isn't that crazy?" Was all Quinn managed to catch of Rachel's words.

"Yeah…" She answered with a nod, trying her best to look enthusiastic.

"Q, I know you weren't paying attention."

Something in Quinn's stomach dropped. Had she caught her staring at her with complete awe and a look of want in her hazel eyes?

"There's a, uh, leaf in your hair. I was distracted."

_Smooth, Fabray. Real freaking smooth._

She watched as Rachel patted the back of her head, frantically searching for the made up leaf.

"It's gone," Quinn assured her. "You got it."

Rachel nodded in response, and a feeling of relief flooding through Quinn. She seemed to have not thought much of it.

_Thank God._

"Do you think I wasn't good enough for him?" Rachel asked a while later, turning her head to lock eyes with Quinn's. Little did she know, she was making Quinn's stomach fill with butterflies with just that one look. "You know, for Finn?"

"Rachel…" Quinn began, anger bubbling up in her chest. The idea that a girl like Rachel would even think that way made her heart ache. "You haven't realized how perfect you are, have you?"

Quinn watched Rachel look down and fiddle with her hands, a light red blush taking over her cheeks.

"I'm far from perf-" The girl began, but was cut off by Quinn's voice.

"Rachel, please stop. You're the most intelligent, talented, amazing, beautiful girl I have ever met in my entire life. And the fact that you can't see that is mind blowing. You're perfect, Rachel Berry. Your determination is perfect, your compassion is perfect, the way you laugh is perfect…" Quinn noticed Rachel's head jump up, and stare into Quinn's eyes again. Was it something she said?

_The way you laugh is… oh shit._

"Finn didn't realize that. Finn couldn't see the way you shine, like everyone else can. Finn didn't deserve you, or your eyes, or your laugh. Finn didn't deserve your perfection, Rachel Berry," Quinn continued. She couldn't even believe the words she was uttering herself. Well she believed them of course, with every inch of her heart, but the fact that she was actually expressing her thoughts out loud to Rachel was unbelievable in every aspect. Panic began to rise in her chest. She had just basically poured her heart out, or at least some of it, to the girl she had been secretly in love with for months now, why wouldn't she be nervous?

All of her thoughts were wiped out of her mind when she felt lips press against hers softly. It took Quinn a moment to realize what exactly was happen, but when she did Quinn returned that gentle kiss. Rachel's lips tasted of bubble gum lip gloss, and at that moment Quinn was certain that that was what heaven smelt like. Heat rose to her chest as the kiss began to deepen, and the blonde was sure that she was dreaming. Everything about the moment was way too surreal for it to be true. Quinn nipped at Rachel's lower lip, begging for more. She wanted to taste more of her perfect lips. She wanted to feel more of the girl that she loved. But to Quinn's dismay, she felt those perfect lips pull away from her own.

_What did I do? Did I do something wrong?_

"W-Wait, Quinn…" Rachel's voice filled the air and caused Quinn's eyes flutter open. Rachel's face was just like her own, completely flustered. "I need you to promise me this. Promise me one thing, alright?"

"Of course, Rachel.

"Just… please don't hurt me."


End file.
